BY SHARON MARTIN
A former mayor of Cushing used to hang out at the coffee shop downtown and complain about shiftless welfare recipients. When the owner of the coffee shop hired two young women from the wrong side of town, he complained about that, too.
My friend Judy, also a coffee drinker, confronted him.
“So, you don’t want them to have welfare, but you don’t want them to have a job?”
Welcome to the world of Republican mayors and Republican governors.
Gov. Mary Fallin bowed to politics and refused the Medicaid expansion that would have added 150,000 Oklahomans to the rolls of the insured. Never mind that our tax dollars would have paid for it. Never mind that our tax dollars will instead pay to insure the uninsured in another state.
Now, she wants to make sure that the working poor don’t have to worry about that danged old minimum wage, either.
As folks in Oklahoma City, and our president, work to advance the idea that a living wage should actually be a living wage, she signs a bill into law that says “cities in Oklahoma are prohibited from establishing mandatory minimum wage or vacation and sick-day requirements.”
So, what if the residents of a city vote to raise the minimum wage? Hey, you thought the democratic process was still alive and well in Oklahoma?
Welcome to Maryville.
The working poor won’t get a raise, health insurance, or even sick leave. But if they get sick, they can still go to the emergency room after they work their shift.
Gov. Fallin looks after her constituents that way.
– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
My Gosh, I was worried we didn’t have any level headed, common sense, people (like me) in Oklahoma….thank you, Sharon Martin! Keep writing!
Edith ( an uneasy, questioning, resident of Tulsa)
Edith, we have a lot of people right here in Oklahoma who think just the way Sharon does in here article. I have known Sharon for a long time and she has arrived at her views naturally and independently. She is a talented and honest girl. Also a inspirational school teacher.
More of us who think as the three of us need to speak up, but feel we lack the communication skills. We need to realize there are those on the other side who are speaking up who are not that skillful, but they are sounding off anyway.
Maybe we could do better if we threw in a few cusswords. I think that might help express how we feel!
How can a party that gets half of the votes run its entire campaign on taking more from the poor, more from the middle class and giving more to the ultra elite AND HALF THE VOTERS APPROVE OF THIS?
Pollute the water, create mass produced vegetables that are less nutritious but can survive when covered with poisons and on and on and yet half the people think this is the party to follow?